CHICAGO (WLS) — It was a hectic day Thursday with reports of ICE arrests taking place throughout the city, including at two Home Depot stores. Immigration advocates said agents are increasingly targeting big box hardware stores where day laborers set up looking for work.
It is not clear how many people were picked up during the raid at a Home Depot on the Southwest Side. A security guard said agents were just grabbing people in and outside the parking lot. Among them was a local street vendor.
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It was 7:52 a.m. when cellphone video taken by a Citizen app user shows a large number of immigration enforcement agents descending on the parking lot of a Home Depot at 47th and Western in Back of the Yards.
“ICE targeting hardware stores, so like Home Depots, like Menards,” said Brandon Lee with ICIRR. “That is a trend that we’re seeing going back to last week.”
Among the people taken was a tamale vendor set up just outside near the BP gas station, Laura Murillo. Jaime Pérez says he’s her fiancé.
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Originally from Tamaulipas Mexico, Murillo is undocumented. She has two teenage daughters, both of them U.S citizens.
“She owns her own tamale business out of south Chicago. She has maybe like 20 employee,” Pérez said. “She has an 18-year-old daughter out of Roosevelt University and a 16-year-old daughter at Washington High School with special needs.
Pérez says he was on a video call with Murillo as she was getting arrested.
“She kept saying you’re hurting me you’re hurting me,” Pérez said. “And they just seat head the phone from her, and the guy that was arresting her said, ‘Do you want the keys?” and I said ‘No, I want her. We’re engaged,’ and he just shut the phone off.”
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It is not clear how many others were arrested at the Home Depot. Members of the Southwest Side Rapid Response Team were on site shortly after.
“I crossed the street and saw that there were six… cars filed with ICE agents. There were in military gear,” said Jian’an with the Southwest Side Response Group. “They had tactical helmets and large guns. That’s at least 20 agents. For what?”
Border Patrol Chief Michel Banks was in Chicago on Thursday. He posted video of himself on the ground with agents, saying “The mission here is as vital as anywhere else on the line. We will not allow criminal aliens to take root in our communities.”
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As for the tamale vendor, her fiancé says she called him from the Broadview processing center, where she is now being held, adding her eldest daughter is in the process of hiring an attorney.
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